Laser Finishing of Ti6Al4V Additive Manufactured Parts by Electron Beam Melting

Abstract

In this work, the feasibility of laser surface finishing of parts obtained by additive manufacturing (AM) was investigated. To this end, a 450 W fiber laser (operating in continuous wave, CW) was adopted to treat the surface of Ti-6Al-4V samples obtained via electron beam melting (EBM). During the tests, different laser energy densities and scanning speeds were used. In order to assess the quality of the treatment, either the as-built or the treated samples were analyzed by means of a three-dimensional (3D) profilometer, digital microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to check which and how process parameters affected the finishing. The results show that, in the best conditions, the laser treatment reduced surface roughness by about 80%.

Keywords

• ebm
• surface roughness
• microhardness
• fiber laser